Beckley – This spring has brought some normalcy to seasonal sports, something that hasn’t been true since 2019.
With the pandemic eliminating track, field, tennis, baseball and softball amongst other sports in 2020 and pushing winter sports back in 2021, many area athletes got a late start on spring sports last year or elected not to compete in them at all.
Meadow Bridge sophomore Jaden Gladwell was one of those athletes.
After a basketball season that ended in late April, Gladwell elected to sit out track season.
“I didn’t run last year and I kind of regret it,” Gladwell said. “Basketball season was so condensed and I wanted a break. I realize that was sort of mistake now.”
That realization has come after an early-season tear during which Gladwell has proven to be one of the top distance runners in Class A. That was apparent at Saturday’s Beckley Relays as he finished first in the 1600-meter run, besting a trio of Class AAA contenders with a time of 4:50.05.
That was a goal Gladwell hoped to achieve before the season on the way to his ultimate goal for his first season on the track.
“My goal today was to get it right at five minutes and I broke that,” Gladwell laughed. “My main goal though is to go to states and get top 10 and top five would be great. But I just want to go to states and compete well. Breaking five minutes the way I did surprised me though. I just pushed through and it feels great.”
Comparing against last year’s state tournament field, Gladwell is well on his way to achieving his season-long goal. His 4:50 time would’ve been good for seventh place in last year’s 1600-meter championship at the state tournament and would’ve been the eight best time at any meet last season.
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Wyoming East doesn’t have a sandpit on its campus thus hasn’t fielded many long jumpers over the years. After the long jump events finished up at Tuesday’s PikeView Invitational, several Wyoming East athletes gave the sandpit a try and enjoyed it – so much so that two girls, juniors Colleen Lookabill and Layla Stover, and three boys, Cody Whitt, Jackson Danielson and Noah Cameron, decided to compete in the event Saturday at the Beckley Relays to see how they’d fare.
The returns were encouraging for a group that picked up the event four days prior. Stover and Lookabill finished third and fourth, respectively, in the event while Cameron and Danielson cracked the top 10 on the boys side.
“Once we hit PikeView I knew I wanted to try it,” Lookabill said. “Once I figured what the scratch was and how far you had to jump I just started to love it from then on. It’s something different I’ve never done before. I feel pretty good about it though. We’re just going to get better the more we do it at meets and we can go down to places and practice so I feel good about it.”
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When you host your own event, the hope is to always put on a showing for the home crowd. The homestanding Flying Eagles did just that, taking the boys team competition with a cumulative total of 249 points, topping George Washington which finished second with 136 points.
The Flying Eagles finished in the top three of every event, taking home gold in the 400 and 3200-meter runs, the 110-meter hurdles, the 4×100, 400 and 800 relays, the 4×110-meter shuttle hurdle, the high jump, long jump and shot put and discus throws.
“I thought it worked out to be a great day, a great small meet and with great weather finally,” Beckley head coach Steve Kidd said. “We had some kids that ran better than they practiced I should say. You always want them to practice like they compete. I got some that got to learn the difference. But our relays are getting there. Our shuttles team with the addition of Keynan (Cook) coming back and finally getting everybody healthy and where they should be – that’s going to be a better team as we move on too.”
The performance was well warranted as the Flying Eagles inducted 15 new members into their Hall of Fame, including an addition from the old Stratton High School which consolidated into Beckley. In attendance was longtime Beckley track coach Pete Culicerto, who had the opportunity to watch many of his former athletes join him in the HOF.
“I just fell into a pot of gold and I was here at the right time when all these athletes came through,” Cuclicerto said. “When you see the inductees today and you get to coach people like that that were state champions – our team just gelled from that.”
Seeing many of his former athletes honored at an event taking place nearly 60 years after he first took over as the track coach at Beckley was special for the legendary coach.
“We started on the old cinder track over at the old Woodrow and then they built this one,” Cuclicerto said. “Now they just have a first-class facility. Just the association with all the kids you have. We started that but when we integrated with Stratton that just put the icing on the cake and molded the two schools together. It took a lot of hard work and a lot of people beating up on you for awhile but there all at once you – we never shied away from the big track meets. We went to all of them and then we started competing with them and started beating them and all of this is the result of that. It’s awesome to come here and see all the kids that you’ve coached. It’s super!”
Making sure the Stratton athletes were honored was a key point for Kidd as well. It’s why the Hall of Fame was renamed from the Woodrow Wilson Hall of Fame to the Beckley Hall of Fame.
The newest inductees were Lisa Hardin Knight, Robin Young, Renee Bradley, Mergie Bradley, Greg O’Neal, Danny Culicerto, Tony Giles, Jason Walker, Marquel Ali, Joseph Saunders, Darnell Jackson, William Ritchie, Danny Hairston, Sharlene Renee Bradley and Irvin Wright
William Ritchie is an inaugural inductee from Stratton who was on an undefeated state championship team in 1966 before becoming a seven-time All-American at Howard University.
“It consolidated in 1967 but none of those guys or ladies have ever been inducted into anything since the consolidation,” Kidd said of Stratton’s inclusion. “I wanted to make sure we honored those guys also.”
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In the boys the high points totals there was a three-way tie for first place with Beckley’s Ryan Muktar and Michael Miller as well as George Washington’s Keegan Sack all totaling 20 points each.
Independence CrossFit star Chloe Honaker tied with Liberty’s Brooklyn Brown on the girls side with 24 points each. George Washington’s girls topped the team totals with 126 points, finishing ahead of Independence which scored 96 points.
Email: tylerjackson@lootpress.com and follow on Twitter @tjack94
For full meet results, click on each of the following links
Beckley Relay Individual Event Results
